Start Fixing it Now.

I recently got my heating and cooling usage report for September. I had five hours of additional heating compared to last year and four hours of additional cooling.

September in the Berkshires is a month when I do not expect to use heating or cooling. It isn’t quite cold enough to require heat, or at least to give in to the temptation when the fall nights start to get cold. And it’s never warm enough to require air conditioning.

Until now, that is.

Perhaps the extended summer heat wave should have prepared me. Or the torrential rains at the end of the season. When it comes to climate, nothing is the same.

When my daughter and son-in-law bought their house in Sarasota Florida, they did not have hurricane glass installed. (They do have shutters, of course.)  “We don’t get those kinds of storms here,” she assured me. And when Hurricane Ian pointed directly at them, she reiterated that this was the first storm of that magnitude headed in their direction in 100 years. Luckily for them (although not for thousands of others), the eye of the storm made landfall to the south. But when it comes to climate, nothing is the same.  Who knows how soon it will be before “the big one” hits the people I love?

Shortly afterward, I was talking to a group of friends about how frightened I was waiting to hear from my family. I shared my belief that with climate change this was likely to happen more often.  “Let’s not make this conversation political,” said one of them, so we decided to drop the topic. But isn’t this an issue worth discussing?  

Climate change is a fact. Towns – if not whole states - will run out of water. More frequent severe weather events will threaten power grids and fuel refineries. There will be food shortages. We can argue about how to fix it, but not whether or not it is our responsibility. According to Pirkei Avot, Ethics of Our Fathers, 2:21, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”  This is the world my generation created, and we must start fixing it, now.